“Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden’d air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb:
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility,
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden’d air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.”

- The Argument (Plate 2) from William Blake’s
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

I like mashups. Especially the darkly funny ones, like this video. But unfunny ones (like the one I wrote not too long ago) can be kinda okay too. Someday I’d like to see a Naked Gun (starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin) vs. Twin Peaks mashup. Or a Nielsen vs the Harry Potter universe one. Hm.

[I wrote this for a fun little contest that will be over soon. Had to take a scene from a classic and rewrite it in the style of another classic. For further details and the source "scene", read this. Here you go.]

“When I told Mina,” Harker wrote in his journal, and then he stopped. He stood up. He went to the cupboard and poured himself a whiskey and drank some of it. He took his journal and lied* down on the floor. Of course, he forget his pen on his table. He hauled himself up, saying, “Stupid, stupid.” The pen wasn’t on the table. He went looking for it and found it beside the whiskey bottle. He lied down again, and wrote, “I just hate this lingering tension. That red scar on Mina’s forehead reminds me of–”

He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He looked at what he wrote, and then he tore out the page and crumpled it.

“I am not writing this down,” he said. “I am not thinking of that.”

He would have liked to write something. He looked at the whiskey, and then he looked back at the journal. He grabbed his pen. “When I told Mina the Count is gone from the country, she went to sleep,” he wrote. “She didn’t sleep so well in ages. When she woke up, we kissed. Like in the old days.” Harker closed his eyes again.

He put the pen down, and then he opened his palm. He mimicked caressing Mina’s head, sweeping her hair aside from her forehead. He gasped. Even now. With eyes still closed he ran his index finger along the scar above Mina’s eyebrows. He opened his eyes and then he stared into the empty air.

“She is here,” he wrote then, “yet she is not here. And she will not be fully here with me until we kill that bloody monster. For he is here and not here too. Oh, Jesus. Sometimes I forget, thinking we’re done with him. But then sometimes he seems more real than any of us. He has lived for ages. We must stop him. Not matter how small we seem compared to him. But why us? Mina said it may be our destiny. I think she is right. He is not our doom. We must be his. And then that scar will be gone.”

He put the pen down, and then tore out and crumpled this page as well. He got to his feet.

“I will write this some other time,” he said. “Mina is working on the older diaries,” he said. “What am I doing here without her? It’s already three o’clock. We must work together. And then try again to make love. At dusk, when she is free.” He grabbed his journal and the whiskey bottle.

“You won’t stand between us, you horror!” he heard himself shout. He opened the bottle and then drank a long sip. “No, you won’t,” he said. He stepped to the door. He opened it, and entered the dark corridor.

From Raymond Carver’s unpublished & unedited ‘Dracula‘

Hope you like it.

* Yes, I know it’s “lay” (and there are other mistakes too.) It’s on purpose, believe me. (See, for some obscure reason I wanted to achieve an unedited and rushed feel, as if the whole thing was written in a small pub or something, during a lunch break.)

“Never Tell You“: A new, rather oldschoolish and not too complicated Nine Inch Nails reinterpretation by yours truly @remix.nin.com. Give it a try? (But don’t expect me to be the Mozart of NIN-remixes. I’m an amateur and I know it. Nevertheless, I’ll be glad if you like my piece.)

“May he rest in peace,” a voice said outside the coffin.
“I won’t, until you go away,” whispered Tim inside.
“Did you hear that?” asked someone else. “As if…”
“Your mind’s playing tricks. It’s the grief. Let’s go.”
“But what if Tim’s still alive? There were cases…”
“You know how they found him. Tim was a great player, but this time he lost. Nobody lives with a severed, missing head.”
“Indeed,” said Tim, listening to the fading footsteps. “Nobody does. Except those who use cheat codes and know where to look.”

• Reason why I read less: Never been a fan of “entertainment only” novels, but I don’t believe anyone has the ultimate answers anymore either.
• Reason why I write less: Never been a fan of “entertainment only” stories & I don’t think the “wisdom” I can offer was sufficient.
• Reason why I still read & write: Raising questions I care about, food 4 thought, belief in our minds’ power to construct personal realities.

(Copy-pasted here from my twitter feed, each post 140 characters, enough for now.)

I’ve uploaded God Mode OFF, my second Nine Inch Nails reconstruction at remix.nin.com. This time it’s a “soundtrackish” one, a tribute not only to TR and NIN but to the long hours I spent playing Quake I. The song is based on samples from “God Given” off the Year Zero album. And I’m still not a musician… so be afraid! :sarcasticclap:

In other news, these past days I’ve been working on the translation of a triple A (that is, major league) computer game. Tons of text and very tight deadlines – but I love the material and been making surprisingly fast progress, finishing twice(!) as many words in a day than I usually do. I expect this game to be really amazing. (But I can’t tell you more about it, being bound by an NDA.)

Today I’ll have a day off. Try and write something creative? Begin a short story perhaps? Or just lay back and watch the sky? Try and come up with some ideas to promote BoSzi’s wonderful little gift shop at etsy further? (You know, everything needs promotion. That’s just a fact. We’re sailing an ocean of information here, we all need guiding lights – especially if we’re trying to make ends meet. By the way, we’d be happy and thankful if you helped us spread the word… or found and bought something for yourself or for someone you hold dear. :nod: )

And what will you do this sunday?

I’ve uploaded The Hand That is Not, my first ever Nine Inch Nails mix at remix.nin.com!

I am not a musician, and I don’t even intend to become one, so do not expect anything mindblowing, though. It’s just that I love the music of NIN and have the greatest possible respect for Trent Reznor’s musical and music-industry related achievements. My remixing – however lamely – his/their work is my way of showing this respect. I do not mind getting low ratings or bad criticism – I’m just happy my work is out there. :nod:

If you have a few spare minutes and you’re not afraid of damaging your ears with my humble attempt, do give it a listen. Thank you – and I do hope you like it a bit at least. (And, of course, do leave a comment here or there – at remix.nin.com – if you’ve got something to say about it!)

Also, thank you, Trent and NIN.

Obscure and (yet) unused endless.hu promo stuff. Just for the fun of it.

Click on the image for more. Via/at.

(Így jár, aki lovecrafti jelzőkre keres rá a google-ben – ilyeneket dob ki a Mátrix. )

(via Under Vhoorl’s Shadow)

Unless it is truly out there, pretty much everything is a fresh take on an existing trope. It really does need to feel fresh, but that’s not the same as being completely original. The originality is all about how it’s done, not what it’s about.

from the blog of Nathan Bransford, lit. agent

Yeah, I agree. To a certain extent. Yet if you don’t have a bit of novelty in the “what” department beside the “how” one, you may very well end up with a well-dressed cliche, a “been there, done that”, a mashup of others’ ideas. And that may sell well, perhaps extremely well – yet it quite likely won’t be memorable. 15 minutes of famous cashing in, and then oblivion as the next “no what, but how” contender arrives. Or perhaps your readers will get educated and recognize your inspiration (or, if you weren’t inspired by others, just wrote what others wrote by chance, they’ll realize that there’s tons of similar stuff out there already), and… think a bit less of you? So I think the truth lies somewhere inbetween the two extremes. Originality is not über-important, but neither is it completely irrelevant.

(My previous, very brief post, illustrated with a funny “stolen” image, is here.)

Random rábukkanok a Litera twitter-oldalára. Épp ezt írják: “Lesz valaha magyar író, aki használja a blogokat és a twittert?“

Jó kérdés.

Szerintem nem lesz. :]

(B. megoldás a következő lett volna: Define “magyar”. Define “író”. Define “használja”. De inkább nem ez lett.)

Explained with a borrowed image. ;D

Btw, if you’re an rpg-fan (or an rpg-hater?), or ’simply’ a creative working in some related field, you should check this huge collection. Some of these images are just hilarious.
(Thx for the link, Transferatu.)

Mushroomhead.

(Want to try and break your tongue? Here’s the lyrics:

Drop It From The Top Don’t Let The Motherfucker Stop Cops Want The Props
Tripping Like A Bunch Of Pork Chops Don’t They Know We’re Loco Going Cuckoo
For Our Coco Puffs So Rough So Tough Sho’nuff Make It Funky Enough Don’t Let The Rhythm Stop Drop The Fronts At Once You Know You’re Falling Behind
Playing Catch Up Like Huntz While You’re Jocking The Trends We’re Stepping
Straight From Within You Know We’re Coming Correct And You’re Slipping Again

Well?)

És ha a regényem arról szólna, hogy egy bazi nagy nősténymajmot bevisznek Tokióba, és a majom szerelmes lesz egy rendkívül filozófikus életszemléletű, mészárlás közben haikukat szavaló yakuza pasasba, majd, miután megszökött és elrabolta a pasast, felmászik a Fujira, ahonnét elviszi őket egy répa-szerű űrhajó, mielőtt még a repülők lelőhetnék? Persze tökre ki lenne dolgozva a yakuza karaktere, meg a majomnőé is, a sarki újságosról nem is beszélve, aki posztmodern megoldásokkal kommentezné végig a sztorit, és a végén kiderülne, hogy ő egy meninblekk, aki a Földön egyedül tudja, hogy a majom nem is majom, hanem egy űrlény?

Igen, ilyen, ebben a formában még nem volt, az 100%, és nem is ír majd senki ilyet. De azért nem árt ügyelni a részletekre, azok viszonylagos eredetiségére sem, hm…?

Blogging – even the way I do it – takes way too much time, so I think I’ll be outta here for a while. I want to focus on writing either my novel or my short story collection (whichever the Muses will favour). So, if you’re interested in shorter (and also irregular) updates, check my freshly started twitter account.

See you sometime, somewhere.

(But don’t be surprised if I post stuff here tomorrow. You know me, don’t you.)

“It is not reality that has a time flow, it is our very approximate knowledge of reality that has a time flow,” says Rovelli. “Time is the effect of our ignorance.”

NewScientist: Is time an illusion? (do click here and read it!)

- Én Márlon Brándó vagyok.
- Én még Csak Norrisz.

Tudom, biztos’ kitalálta már más is, de sebaj. Emitt egy trú roflmao jelenet vigasztalásul.

- Miért van itt ez a ház?

- Ha lenyomom a kilincset, kinyílik az ajtó. Empirikusan bizonyítható.

- Miért van itt ez a ház?

- Ha megnyitom a csapot, folyik a víz. Minél jobban megnyitom, annál jobban folyik. És el is tudom zárni.

- Hallod, mit kérdezek?

- A villanykapcsolóval fel tudom kapcsolni a lámpát. S lőn világosság.